Tonight, four days after the 50th anniversary of Anne Frank's death--memorialized around the world last week by public readings of her eloquent diaries--South Coast Repertory weighs in with its own Holocaust commentary: a NewSCRipts presentation of Peter Sagal's "Denial." The Harvard-educated writer, 30, believes that the SCR Mainstage reading of his new play could not come at a better time or in a more appropriate place.

August 22, 2009 | Ross King, King is the author of many books, including "Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling."

An endearing aspect of "The Da Vinci Code" phenomenon has been the creation of a new kind of action man. The boffin-as-hero, exemplified by Robert Langdon, marks a change from the traditional male adventurers of page and screen: the gun-toting muscleman, the caped superhero, the suave secret agent lethally accessorized with an exploding fountain pen. Guns and gadgets now have to make room for middle-aged professors more familiar with biblical symbolism...

Granados should count her blessings that her father was not on the Arizona or anywhere within reach of the Japanese forces during World War II. The ghastly legacy of Japanese tyranny in the 1940s is not as compact as a photograph of a mushroom cloud, but it exists, despite historical revisionism. I will never forget the Americans who died defending our country. Should the bomb have been used? The tough answer will always be yes, absolutely. Scott Holleran Glendale

A British bishop whose denial of the Holocaust embroiled the pope in controversy left Argentina, several days after the government ordered him out. Pope Benedict XVI sought last month to help heal a rift with ultra-traditionalists by lifting a 20-year-old excommunication decree imposed on Richard Williamson and three other bishops. The pope has since insisted that Williamson recant his statements before he can be recognized as a Roman Catholic bishop.

The Anti-Defamation League applauds The Times' strongly worded editorial on Ferguson's attempt to rewrite history. Fortunately for all of us, Ferguson's effort to minimize the injustice of the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II was soundly defeated in the California Legislature. The ADL, an agency that vociferously called for reparations for the victims of that internment, can well appreciate the insidious effects wrought by historical revisionism. Instead of ignoring or depreciating the harm inflicted on Americans of Japanese origin, it is important to work toward the establishment of educational programs and public remembrances of those events designed to ensure that such injustices are not repeated.

It's been a century since the French army framed Alfred Dreyfus, a young Jewish captain, on a charge of passing secrets to the Germans, convicted him in a closed-door court-martial and shipped him off to Devil's Island with a life prison sentence. Everyone involved in that shameful episode died long ago. Dreyfus himself was eventually exonerated and returned to active duty, fighting alongside his son in World War I and receiving the French Legion of Honor medal.

A civil trial pitting warring factions of a Costa Mesa historical revisionist organization has been postponed, attorneys and courtroom officials confirmed Tuesday. Jury selection in the case involving defendant Willis Carto, 69, and the organization he founded, the Institute for Historical Review, won't begin until Thursday, with opening arguments expected to begin next week, attorneys said. The group was founded partly to deny historical data pertaining to the Holocaust.

The bishop whose rehabilitation by the Vatican sparked outrage because of his denials of the Holocaust has been removed as the head of an Argentine seminary, his superiors said. The ultraconservative Society of St. Pius X, which is trying to reconcile with the Vatican, announced that it had dismissed British Bishop Richard Williamson as director of the La Reja seminary and distanced itself from his views. His views about the Holocaust created an uproar last month when Pope Benedict XVI lifted his excommunication and that of three other bishops consecrated by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

Was Jesus the first Jewish comedian? Did he deliver the Sermon on the Mount and, if so, why was it so short? Is the Resurrection a true event or an example of early Christian mass hysteria? As Easter Sunday approaches, the search for the historic Jesus--the man, not the Gospel figure of miracle and mystery--has hit the U.S. media with a loud, some would say blasphemous, thunderclap, leading to questions that many orthodox Christians would never have dreamed of asking. All three major U.S.

Right-wing British historian David Irving has been arrested in Austria on a warrant accusing him of denying the Holocaust. Irving, 67, was detained Nov. 11 in the southern province of Styria on a warrant issued in 1989 under Austrian laws making Holocaust denial a crime, said police Maj. Rudolf Gollia, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry. Austrian media said the charges stemmed from speeches Irving delivered in Vienna and the southern town of Leoben.

Right-wing British historian David Irving has been arrested in Austria on a warrant accusing him of denying the Holocaust. Irving, 67, was detained Nov. 11 in the southern province of Styria on a warrant issued in 1989 under Austrian laws making Holocaust denial a crime, said police Maj. Rudolf Gollia, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry. Austrian media said the charges stemmed from speeches Irving delivered in Vienna and the southern town of Leoben.

The black man considers the white. The white man considers the black. Both gazes questioning. Both gazes direct: Their steady stare a looking glass. But who is white and who is black if trajectories of blood deem you family? And how might one account for the space between? For Edward Ball, the politics of race seeped into his Southern consciousness like sun through a day-porch screen.

Robert Eisenman sometimes feels as if he's being persecuted. He's been vilified by the New York Times as "incoherent" and "impossible." Publications worldwide have taken shots at his latest book. Fellow academics have distanced themselves. "He represents a marginal position," said Mike Phelps, director of the Ancient Biblical Manuscript Center in Claremont. James Sanders, a professor at the Claremont School of Theology, goes further.

A civil trial pitting warring factions of a Costa Mesa historical revisionist organization has been postponed, attorneys and courtroom officials confirmed Tuesday. Jury selection in the case involving defendant Willis Carto, 69, and the organization he founded, the Institute for Historical Review, won't begin until Thursday, with opening arguments expected to begin next week, attorneys said. The group was founded partly to deny historical data pertaining to the Holocaust.

Was Jesus the first Jewish comedian? Did he deliver the Sermon on the Mount and, if so, why was it so short? Is the Resurrection a true event or an example of early Christian mass hysteria? As Easter Sunday approaches, the search for the historic Jesus--the man, not the Gospel figure of miracle and mystery--has hit the U.S. media with a loud, some would say blasphemous, thunderclap, leading to questions that many orthodox Christians would never have dreamed of asking. All three major U.S.

Granados should count her blessings that her father was not on the Arizona or anywhere within reach of the Japanese forces during World War II. The ghastly legacy of Japanese tyranny in the 1940s is not as compact as a photograph of a mushroom cloud, but it exists, despite historical revisionism. I will never forget the Americans who died defending our country. Should the bomb have been used? The tough answer will always be yes, absolutely. Scott Holleran Glendale

Many scientists envision South America 12,000 years ago as a virgin landscape unknown to humankind. That vision is being shaken up by new evidence that people may have migrated from Asia to the Western Hemisphere much earlier than had been believed. A theory widely accepted until recently says people first came to North America about 11,500 years ago, walking across a land bridge later consumed by the Bering Sea.

Tonight, four days after the 50th anniversary of Anne Frank's death--memorialized around the world last week by public readings of her eloquent diaries--South Coast Repertory weighs in with its own Holocaust commentary: a NewSCRipts presentation of Peter Sagal's "Denial." The Harvard-educated writer, 30, believes that the SCR Mainstage reading of his new play could not come at a better time or in a more appropriate place.